Yeah I am at the minute must admit and have quite a bit of content to get through as it is up to book 13 now. But like you said end game there is nothing really there yet, noticed a lot of people have that gripe also within the community. Hopefully by the time I finish all the main stuff which I am guessing will take me a while. They will have managed to implement some sort of end game feature.

I got to level 40 then the quests (and people for group quests, I was leveling pretty fast) dried up, so I had nothing left to do and quit.

They gave all accounts a free trial a while ago and I just couldn't get back into it from there. I had no idea where the new zones they added were so I didn't know what to do or where to go. It would have been nice if they explained what was added a little better when I first logged in, perhaps I would have found a bunch of quests for my level and gotten into it again.

Find a good guild. Lotro is a PvE game that really relies on playing in a group to do stuff. Together the game is a lot of fun in a slightly more relaxed way then WoW. Although raid gear is nice it ain't all that essential and so the attempts to get it tend to be more relaxed.

I am currently giving the game a break, got life, until the expansion is out. Play the game slowly, enjoy it and group whenever possible and make friends.

Trust me, if you solo this game most of the way you will be missing out on a lot of what makes the game fun. This game ain't for grinders, gear junkies or min-maxers.

It is a social MMORPG. There is also plenty of end content by now but you might miss it unless others introduce you to it because it is not as clear as in WoW.

I play LOTRO on one of the US servers and I rarely have problems finding a group. There's always someone on looking for something that I need and a lot of the level 50s seem to go out of their way to help.

In fact, compared to WoW, the friendly, helpful community is what's keeping me interested. The first time someone just gave me gear they didn't want I couldn't believe it.

I'm up to level 44 now and I'm not sure what I'll do when I hit 50, but hopefully Moria will be out before I finish running through the level 50 storyline content.

My computer's been stone dead for months, so I've not been able to play (hence the lack of recent updates on the MMO channel) but I'm hoping to get back into it and grind myself up to the top over the next few months. Can't remember for the life of me what my server is though, it's been that long!

I am still playing regularly on the Snowbourn server. The new content is great to give you something to do whilst you prepare for MoM and the guild I am in is awesome for end game content and working together.

Havent really looked at levelling an alt but preparing my main character for MoM by gearing up and doing all the deeds necessary.

Just came back to LOTRO from a long summer break.. and was pleasantly surprised that the server was still quite crowded. I didn't have a problem finding groups for my alts progression through the epic quests.

I am thinking that the LifeTime Subscription idea might have been a stroke of genius. In the end they might not get as much cash from those subs but they keep the servers busy and I think most lifers will buy the expasion packs even though they maybe don't play much. So, new people joining the game wont find empty servers and quit due to that reason. Almost all of my guild are lifers and they all pop in now and again even though most have another mmo as well.

I agree with FWB about the PvP situation but I guess WAR will fix that for me. Then I can play WAR for some frantic PvP action and Lotro for some laid back friendly social/RP PvE..

I'm really enjoying LOTRO. I'd got burned-out playing WoW, as I hit 70 and found myself with nothing to do. See, I HATE raiding and found that was all WoW offered me: raid, get more money, get more gear, repeat.

What I like about LOTRO is the "side-goals" it offers, like housing and the peripheral stuff outside of dungeon-crawling. It's a more complete feel to me.

I loved playing WoW but always felt the world existed simply as a "game level" for me to kill stuff in. I know all MMO universes are, but for me, it lacked that spark. I couldn't see myself hanging around Stormwind just to be "in" the world in the same way as something like SWG or LOTRO offers. (Yeah, SWG had zero content, but some fantastic "world" ideas.)

It seems its such an acomplished game, but lacks any decent PvP, which is a pity. If they had some decent world pvp (I dont mean the monster play thing) then the bloodthirsty types like me would probably sub. I played it for a month, appreciated it, but it never got the hooks in me. This was at launch, has it changed much?

An online game of LOTR was just begging for a proper pvp system in place. Instead of monster play, you should be able to roll an evil alt, which has just as many levels, does quests, but has no pve endgame, just pvp. You can just roam the lands and kill heroes.

If you want PvE, you roll a hero and raid endgame with the extra tension of being jumped on the way to your raids. If you were more into Pvp, rolling an evil char and terrorising people would be the way to go.

Established players would have leveled both, just like people have muliple 70s in wow. I think it would be good anyway.

To be honest, the LACK of PvP is one of the things I like about it. All PvP does is introduce a huge class-war with everybody claiming everybody else is too powerful and - as a result - the devs spend all their time "balancing" the classes and ruining the PvE game.

I'm starting to look into this - I dont really have a spare 5 hours to do a WoW dungeon anymore. Does lotro suffer the same instance problem?

Also getting a bit bored of azeroth, been everywhere and done most of it. Does lotro have a better storyline/quest/narrative? I could imagine it being much more immersive with the film chars and locations in.

With so many updates still due to come I'm sure that PvP will be introduced properly later on in the story. Based on the films/books a lot of the bigger battles were nearer the end of the story so this is probably when more PvP based classes will be introduced.

Adam_T wrote:
I'm starting to look into this - I dont really have a spare 5 hours to do a WoW dungeon anymore. Does lotro suffer the same instance problem?

Also getting a bit bored of azeroth, been everywhere and done most of it. Does lotro have a better storyline/quest/narrative? I could imagine it being much more immersive with the film chars and locations in.

Why not give it a go? The client is free to download with 14 days free.

iokthemonkey wrote:
What I like about LOTRO is the "side-goals" it offers, like housing and the peripheral stuff outside of dungeon-crawling. It's a more complete feel to me.

I loved playing WoW but always felt the world existed simply as a "game level" for me to kill stuff in. I know all MMO universes are, but for me, it lacked that spark. I couldn't see myself hanging around Stormwind just to be "in" the world in the same way as something like SWG or LOTRO offers. (Yeah, SWG had zero content, but some fantastic "world" ideas.)

That's a fair point. I did like the quirky rewards in LOTRO, whether it be a title for grinding (good idea, if you ask me) or a pet for completing some side quest. I left before housing came in but that would have appealed to me too. But in the end I found myself playing my spider in the PvP more than my main character.

Adam_T wrote:
I'm starting to look into this - I dont really have a spare 5 hours to do a WoW dungeon anymore. Does lotro suffer the same instance problem?

Also getting a bit bored of azeroth, been everywhere and done most of it. Does lotro have a better storyline/quest/narrative? I could imagine it being much more immersive with the film chars and locations in.

The instances I've encountered are really short, but then again, I'm only level 20 But basically they're used as a way to drive the narrative side of the game.

Essentially what happens is you get a line called "Epic Quests." These run parrallel to the story of Frodo with the ring, so you'll meet up with Strider in the Prancing Pony before Frodo arrives and he'll make some comment about, I dunno, clearing the path so they can make it safely, at which point you get a quest to "help" them. (I just made that up Quest but it's sort of how it works...)

As for the narrative, for a start, there's lots of reading in the Quest descriptions But what's very cool is the amount of in-game cut-scene/animatics that you'll encounter. So whenever you have a "Boss Encounter" you'll see him standing around ranting and raving before he attacks. There are also CGI sequences at the end of each Epic Quest, with Gandalf narrating the events as they unfold.

One thing, though: it's based on the books, not the movies, so the look isn't so "lifelike" in terms of the armour and there are lots of people in pointy hats and codpieces...

An online game of LOTR was just begging for a proper pvp system in place. Instead of monster play, you should be able to roll an evil alt, which has just as many levels, does quests, but has no pve endgame, just pvp. You can just roam the lands and kill heroes.

Well this is monster play basically no? But without the level grind to 50 and limited in where you can roam. You just start doing quests, gaining "skills" and bothering raiders immediately Anyway.. Turbine has said they will expand that in the future to famous LotR battles.

The instances I've encountered are really short, but then again, I'm only level 20

Hehe.. the instances after 20 are GIGANTIC. Most people agree that they are a bit too big... Garth Arwen and Fornost take at least 3-4 full runs (3hours) to clear all the quests and all the objectives.

Dizzy wrote:
Hehe.. the instances after 20 are GIGANTIC. Most people agree that they are a bit too big... Garth Arwen and Fornost take at least 3-4 full runs (3hours) to clear all the quests and all the objectives.

Ouch.

Thanks for the info. I'll go back to fishing now. I have a Goldfish to mount on my wall now.

The instances I've encountered are really short, but then again, I'm only level 20

Hehe.. the instances after 20 are GIGANTIC. Most people agree that they are a bit too big... Garth Arwen and Fornost take at least 3-4 full runs (3hours) to clear all the quests and all the objectives.

Interestingly, though, when you get to 50 they tend to get nice and short again. Aside from the 4hr+ nightmare which is Carn Dum (which at least locks your progress for a day or two so you don't have to do it all in one go and has keys which allow you to skip the early sections) small group dungeons tend to be a comfortable 60-120 minutes. And the quest instances for the main story-line are generally about 30 minutes or less.

not read any of the comments... just going to pimp some wares... i've got a big limited run special edition box set that has the game, a hardback copy of the manual, some "mythril" statue, a parchment map, a numbered box thing (number 0314 or thereabouts), umm... a parchment message from turbine, a couple of unique in-game items, some cards or other that have the in game item codes on or something, a weeks worth of buddy code... and best of all, lifetime subscription (with some presentation certificate). It's all still factory sealed, and in a big book like box. i've seen there's a years membership for £89 (i think) so it's probably worth quite a bit as a package.

i won it in a competition and have been meaning to ebay it for a while. just wondered if anyone here would be interested in it for cash/swapsies.

i've aslo got a sealed gold edition of the game that comes with a few in game items and horses and stuff and a 45 day subscription if anyone were interested.